Renaming of Link within Site Links - Brand Issues
-
Hi,
We welcome your thoughts on the current problem we are experiencing:
When searching for our client's brand name, their previous sponsors name is shown within the Site Links to a very important page. We are keen to change this reference within the Site Link but keep the link itself.
We have untaken the following without any change to the words used within this particular Site Link:
1) Removal of previous-sponsors name sitewide:
- Title tags
- Alt attribute
- Anchors
- Page names
- Image names
2) Removal of sponsors name from 200+ sister sites:
- Title tags
- Alt attribute
- Anchors
- Page names
- Image names
3) Modification of [previous-sponsor + client] within Wikipedia:
There were 250+ mentions of the sponsor + client within Wikipedia. References have either been deleted or changed to past tense. (Google has been extremely slow at indexing these changes.)4) Removal of off-site mentions:
After using Advanced Filters within OSE, we extracted all links that included the previous-sponsors name. We filtered these by DA and approached these sites and requested they update their links/on-site content to include the up-to-date name. This included large news organisations and reference sources.We also used Google operators (inurl, inanchor, intitle) to search for references mentions of [previous-sponsor + client]. We used Buzzstream to collate this data and contacted hundreds of sites sorted by DA.
5) We have twice requested demotion of the Site Link via GWT without success. Google clearly see's the Site Link as too important to remove it.
The following is useful background information:
The [client + previous-sponsor] worked together for 5+ years. Our client is known by it's own brand, but it was also called in certain arenas as [client + previous-sponsor].
Fresh mentions of [client + previous-sponsor] are frequent. Examples of this are from collectors merchandise and videos that are posted frequently.The page being shown within the Site Links is essential. It cannot be moved. With a PA of mid-70's.
We have changed the Title of the page multiple times, without any change to the Site Link.Thanks
Phil -
Thanks David and Jarno,
I thought the following may be useful to you. After extensive testing, we followed this process to remove the Sitelink:
We added <meta name="robots" content="index, nofollow">only to the page shown within the Sitelinks. Within our tests we found removing the page within GWT only elongated the removal process, therefore we refrained from doing this. Within GWT we did a Fetch and Render to inform Google of the change.</meta name="robots">
Within less than 24 hours the Sitelink was removed from the SERPs and organic sessions have not been effected whatsoever.
Feel free to ask further questions if you'd like further information.
Thanks,
Phil -
I agree with David,
I would also use a 301 redirect to a new page. You'll catch all the traffic going to the old page that way and also if Google visits it will follow that path. You could then even notice that Google changed the site link for you. It has happened on several occasions.
Regards
Jarno -
Have all the pages on all the sites you control and have revised been resubmitted? If you leave it to Google to do this on their own, it will take a very long time, most likely years before they are all gone. Even tho its a very simple tool, try using the "fetch as Google" tool in Webmaster tools. This can be done on both an individual URL basis, or you can resubmit the entire page and all its connected links. Once you have submitted all the offending URL's that contain the revised information, refresh the sitemap, and resubmit the entire site(s).
For the Wiki pages that you dont own, it will take a long time for the indexed result to change, but as long as the information on the page that it links to doesnt contain the information you dont want, you are fine. Since Wiki is so large, it may take some time for them to revise that indexed data. On the other hand, since Wiki is so big and is most likely crawled daily by Google, you might see chnages quickly. How long has it been since you modified the info?
For the on site issues, if you are seeing a very slow reindex of the modified pages, you could also create entirely new pages, and have the old page 301 redirect to the new one that does not contain the sponser.
One more thing you could try is a press release stating that the alliance no longer exists. Word it in a positive light.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Organic Brand Clicks/Traffic Drop - Why?
Hi Moz Community, I've been reviewing Search Console and have been noticing that there has been a consistent drop in brand clicks. The overall number of keywords (especially for the top 2 pages) have been increasing, according to SEMRUSH, however, traffic and sales are still in decline. There are no algorithmic and manual penalties, in addition, paid search activity has been increasing in the leadup to Christmas. Has anyone experienced this and potentially advise how to diagnose and resolve this issue?
Branding | | rec1230 -
Opinions For Getting Worthwhile Links For Longevity
Hi Everyone, I have just joined the Moz community and have been reading through a lot of content. I have a question and I would like to put it out to all of the professional digital marketers here to hear their take on it. Basically I work for a construction company that has developed a way to build extensions to houses which is environmentally friendly and cost effective. Obviously the house extensions market is pretty competitive and I need to work out how I can make headway into the market for the digital marketing side of things. The website is still under construction and I am having it built in order to will viewers to enter their contact details for more information as well as provide lots of useful content that show why the product will be more cost effective than say a standard timer frame constructed house extension. We are having some professional videos made as well so we can set up a YouTube channel and this will be clearly visible on the website as well. What I would like advice on is how would you start to build quality links to a site like this. We are not going for just local trade but more national (UK). The main thing is that we have longevity and I know it wont happen very quickly but I want to ensure that we do things the right way. Thanks Barry
Branding | | newbiebarry0 -
Google Changing the Title Tag to Your Brand
A while back google started changing our title tags to have our name in it, which was great and reasonable for the most part. We recently ran into a problem with it as we have some properties on our site that fall under a dba. Here is the example. Title tag: Kolea- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals
Branding | | RobDalton
Kolea is a vacation rental community is a resort called Waikoloa. Waikoloa Vacation Rentals is our company name and www.waikoloavacationrentals.com is our company site. Here is the problem:
Title tag: Hualalai Resort- Waikoloa Vacation Rentals
Hualalai is a completely different place than Waikoloa and we do business in there as Hualalai Vacation Rentals, but keep our properties on our www.waikoloavacationrentals.com site rather than microsites. How can you let google know that what they are doing is incorrect for specific pages? Thanks,0 -
Google Plus for Businesses - Should I add users to Company's Circles (branded page)?
Hi All, I know (or think I know) that one of the easiest ways to gain followers for my brand on G plus is to add people to our company's circles. Naturally, they often add you back. However, what does it mean to people who watch my brand (my G Plus page), the fact that I'm following thousands of people? Should I do it? How does it reflect on us?
Branding | | BeytzNet
Is there a better way to gain followers (specifically for G Plus)? P.S
We obviously have the badge on site but we hardly gain followers that way. Thanks0 -
Social Media Icons for trust - have link land them on a social media page or have them stay on the page with like, tweet, +,etc?
An interesting question arises out of a conversation with one of my team. We were talking about FB pages in particular regarding a client and I am for icons that allow for trust without leaving the client's site page (I am from a direct marketing background originally and am against sending them somewhere else). She was pointing out that we had a client who has a FB page and we were not sending them to that page. I explained how I do not like to gain a bit of trust by sending them off site because it is the opportunity to lose a conversion by them becoming distracted. I also thought of a client who has over 100,000 likes, shares, etc. and who still is in the direct sales business at the end of the day; were they better off with a prospective client/customer to send them to their FB page/Twitter page, etc. or should they stay on the commercial site? I still believe that in the bricks and mortar world, I would not have a customer who came in to buy/look at a TV first go down the street to a social club for people who liked my company and then hope they come back and buy. Also, is there an opportunity to close a sale that would not have been closed by virtue of sending them away or to increase the size of the sale (remember, this must be such a sale increase or probability of sale increase as to outweigh the risk of loss of a client who would have bought)? I look forward to your assistance.
Branding | | RobertFisher0 -
Should I create a Google + account for the brand for Rel=Author
Hi, What I meant is should I use the above mentioned account as rel=author for category pages etc? It seems to me improper to use my account (with my picture) in a category page and to show my face in the SERPS for searches like "Toshiba Laptops". On the other hand, if in the SERPS it will show our Logo it might increase CTR... Any thoughts? Thanks
Branding | | BeytzNet0 -
Links from paid submissions to FWA, awwwards etc.
I'm thinkink about submitting my company website and some of our clients websites to contest sites like FWA and Awwwards. They offer paid submissions and they claim that for 50€, more or less, my site will be manualy submited to 50 web galleries. What do you think?
Branding | | Jbla0 -
Acquired Premium Domain, question about Brand name change related to SEO
We recently acquired a premium domain name The domain we were operating on before had a lot of SEO done on it, as well as branding campaigns. Now that we have the premium domain, would it be wise to start doing SEO on the premium domain and discontinue old domain promotions if we plan on changing the brand name? to clear up any confusion, we own for example AAAFurnitureStore.com we acquired the premium domain: AAAFurniture.com should we redirect AAAFurnitureStore.com -> AAAFurniture.com or since we already have established presence/brand do opposite and redirect AAAFurniture.com -> AAAFurnitureStore.com and keep the brand name same as "AAA Furniture Store"?
Branding | | lafurniturestore0